These are my notes (in reverse order, most recent up top) from LWT summit, which was in the Castro Theater.

Impressions and Feelings

At several points during the day, I felt overhelmed with the amazingness of being surrounded by these people. Giddy. Having a friend with me was helpful.

Overall

The Lesbians Who Tech Summit was enjoyable for the company and it helped me regain a little of my dwindling inspiration; it was not technically taxing like Strangeloop. The swag was certainly great; I love my new rainbow-logsos-on-grey t-shirts.

Live recording of the podcast “call your girlfriend”

“is there any company that is doing it right, doing anything?”
“He said- the men and women of Company”- and they were all men.
“They’re very sensitive men here in Silicon Valley”
“Twitter (leadership) has three Peters and a Dick”
“Let’s none of us never touch rupert murdoch”
“Can you help me find women?” (he said) “They mean well- they just sit around and mean well and they don’t do anything about it.”
“If you look around the boardroom at twitter and you don’t notice that there are ten white guys, you’re a fucking idiot” (I disagree- it is hard to find the unusual in surroundings that look like you, when you’re used to it.)
She mentioned running for mayor of SF someday
She would make a citywide day where you just wear polka dots
“my great grandfather was- I wont say mafia, but- nearby”
“I work harder, I make more calls. journalist- persistent, curious”
CIA, gay, outness (they wouldn’t take her because she was gay, but she was out, so what’s the problem?)
She identifies as patriotic
She joined the military in order to pay for medical school. She hated Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
“which is probably a good thing- I shouldn’t have a gun”
“I really hate format fetishists” (re: paper books vs ebooks)
She reminisced about the big phones in the newsroom
She reminisced about her fellowship at Duke university
“How brave can you be in the workplace?”
“What should I do?” “what do you want to do?”
“Now that I have sons, I understand the arrogance of men. They think the world is their oyster. I’ve tried really hard to make them insecure, but…” (audience laughs)
“always ask for tons of money!” (when the speaker was negotiating with someone who happened to be a friend) “Come onnn, we’re friends….” “I super love you but give me the fucking money”
she is on twitter!
“when you start on third base, you tend to make it to home base pretty quickly” (on privilege)
There are both Clinton and Bernie supporters “and I respect it”
caremad
“This one is a fear election, not a hope election” :(
Question: what do you (regret not doing?) My answer: not working for spacex, nasa (yet!)

ignite talks

teaching comics to refugees

volunteer teaching comics at refugee shelter in germany
Visual Storytelling as a Tool for Social Change (i.e. Syrian Refugees) in the Age of the Meme
timing issues with slides
brain parsing as scene rather than as lines
kara swisher, re/code empire.
her comics of their comics

“css vs my gender”

css tablecloth on top of the table that is html
genderqueer and shrug gender :) :)

fear

we become our stories, and yet they are just stories.
names of trans ladies, ginger, phoenix
prefer concrete examples
sooo much of human psych is that what you believe about yourself becomes true.

kinsey scale for diversity

diversity points
kinsey scale- totally outdated
white, cisgender, hetero, able-bodied is all the one end of this theoretical scale

“fucking risk”

She spent her late brother’s life insurance money on a startup that failed and she doesn’t regret it.
start small! She started LWT with an fb event page
basic premises- no one can lose their job because of sex/gender
“If the world were (more like us) it would be better” this is an extremely common / universal sentiment… is a logical fallacy? Or an appeal-to-audience? Or is there another name for it?
The conference has lots of self published mini videos that are well done. I like it more for short introductions than attempted standup comedy / MCing, at least.
The speaker was intro-d while carrying a child. Presenting while carrying a child might be an entertaining speech but it would require a backup plan…
“buzzfeed is disturbingly reputable nowadays”

SpaceX

The speaker has a BS aerospace engineering, 9 years ago
Her nickname is “mother of dragons!” which is a Game of Thrones reference and also a reference to the SpaceX Dragon capsule
22 successful launches to date
flight-herited
not always reasoning by analogy
commanalitis in vehicle subassemblies for rapid turnaround
end goal- get to mars.
build an dlaunch every week, day, hour

Watson

@jojobickley “looking to do something better in the world”
really good slides and presentation strategy
give a mechanic x-ray vision
watson oncology
ibm chef watson.com
inaccurate usage of “decrypt”
“dark data” in accessible, unviewable

How to Leverage Your Most Compelling Advantages

It started out as total bs “do what you do well” with no other content
Global Product Manager, Citigroup, Lisa Davis
“I look fascinating to everyone. I could back up and try to hide in the wall paper, but I use it to my advantage. They will REMEMBER me. You gonna talk about me. That is my advantage and I will damn sure use it.”

break

I visited the TW booth. Square has the best tshirts :)

We visited Hot Cookie. Mmmm, cookies.

White house tech innovation summit

tweets- #transneeds
In order to spread it, they negotiated with celebrities to tweet about it
SMS is more inclusive and accessible. Relatively few people used it but the content that came through it was great
police data working group
green book app “negro motorist green book” (what is this?)
STEAM team
social service support networks
company zipwhip
herstory

Pitch competition

Cleanify won

photography and racism

“shirley cards”

impostor syndrome

drake as analogy
the way I talk to myself, if i heard it on the street, would be an abusive relatiship
impostor syndrome went from being a bug, to a feature. dunning kruger effect- means you’re on teh right side of it.
“trust me, its complicated.”

lightning talks

talk 1

“technodyke”

talk 2:

“my career had become an a/b test on gender”
“bullshit like Culture Fit, which means ‘not like me’”
“not a good fit” gottta be- why do you say that?
common questions ebtween interviews,
slides as photos of post-its!!
community safety manager at github

talk 3:

i”ve hugged over 8ooo people
founded equalitytv
PSA “she for me” music video
hacks 4 good hackathon
wonderwonan hacks hackathon
la women hackathon- did not go well?
fish hackathon, USDA
“some of you may be on my stage”
wonderwomentech show

talk 4:

theater to tech
“i like your energy” as a negotiation / way to start collaborating

talk 5:

“Broadly”

lunch

We ran into a guy on the street who stopped us and talked about screens being not square, with religious fervor

space talks at the bar:

brain computer interfaces

P300 signal- used for spelling wods.
FNIS functional near infrared spectroscopy
hemodynamic response
shine light, see how much gets adsorbed
BACh: Brain Automated Chorales - dynamicallyy adjust difficulty upwards - people learn faster with this system!
BrAAHMN brain automated harmonies in a musical system. help people improvise on a piano! (harder than helping people learn!)
motor imagery, midas touch problem

3D modeling or proteins

deeply oversimlified
TYR, OCA1
no 3D crystal strucutre available- research hindered if we dont know what the protein looks like
terrible slides
biowolf big computer cluster- NIH
250 nanoseconds of simulation time, 1 month runtime
how do you write the code for a transaction that cant be rerun, takes too long? caching? efficientcy, CS
“there are molecules that havent been discovered yet that we can look at!” (computational genetic diseases)
“drug docking”

Cannabis

“I havent talked in front of theis many women since college, when I did vagina monologues”
“est. 22 billion by 2020. that’s a big-ass pie and a lotta people got the munchies”
“endocabannoid system”
meadow
cannabis, elections, the internet. discuss?
@theisamarie

11:40am The Future of Energy is Cybersecurity

Linda Maepa @lmaepa, Author, Cyber-physical Security and Battery System Design; Energy storage and advisory CXO; Organic Farmer
energy system- constructed in such a way that bad actors can damage the system
bah-NAHL (banal)
hitachi data systems- embettted at the zoo as dba and sysadmin
rolling blackouts - consequences to servers onsite (not in data centers)
spacex patches!
bill agtes- “we need an energy miracle”
masks stand!
“energy generation- the sexiest thing going”
internet access to vehicles- turn them on and off for chargin- market manipultion- exposing to external actors
SANS institute- developing a practice around industrial control systems
NERK CIP standards - dept of h security- leadership role
what are the areas that you must protect? if youre a corporate security office,r, CIO, you need NERC CIP standards- must look atif - youre a CIP
Executive Womens forum- mid to high level
SANS
Idaho national labs- hubs- free online course on industrial security- reach out to the spaker to get the ilnk
“Create the space.”
electroferocious.com

edie windsor scholarship award and panel

“How do you feel?” “as soon as I stop crying, I’ll be fine”
“When I came in, Fortran had already been created, but there were very few compilers, so one of th ethings that I woekd on was - those compilers”
She got a masters degree in math, and worked as a secretary at IBM in order to pay the bills
Watching a very old lady discussing complicated math on stage is amazing. It gives me a great feeling.
“By accident, my thesis ended up being original”
“We went to the library- they had my thesis, they were getting requests for it- they had to get their permission to send it out, and - I said yes but first you have to give us five minutes to fix it”
ibm “corporate came down”
ibm supervisor, can you get me machine time tonight,
“I was a hero because i had all these smart people in cubicles who [did good work]”
“My real talent was that I loved talent- people worked for me like they hadn’t been working, and I made sure that everyone got full credit.”
“Finally, corporate realized that they needed to upgrade us all” (as in teaching them new skills)
“I don’t even remember the words that they used, but it turns out that internet was what they were talking about”
“So I would call them back a couple days later and said tell me again, why this is important.”
“I knew all of them [coworkers] very well and none of them were lesbians. I lied all the time. I never told the truth.”
“One half of one of the greatest love stories there has ever been. The documentary about it opened in this theater”
Harvard, brilliant linguist using computers to translate languages.
“We did Fortran, we did COBOL, we did- …I’m 86 years old and I lose words.” (shouted from the audience, lovingly and to applause) “No one cares! [that she loses words”
“So I called a friend up, and I said PLEASE if you know where the lesbians are, TAKE ME” (long ago, in New York)
“I built a harpsichord”
She had to pay a huge estate tax for the apartment (which was much more valuable than when they bought it) because their marriage was not legally recognized in the US
Thea Spire - paralyzed, patient therapist, described her wife as a “math genius”
“I was so despondent about ever having a life that I wanted to have” when she went to the therapist (the therapist whose widowed wife she later represented in front of the Supreme Court)
“My job as a lawyer was to put my michigas aside…” (MITCH-ee-gahs) what is that?
“I, like everybody here-“ This is such a strange thing to say- it tries to establish common ground but I suspect that it actully just makes the people who do not share the thing, sad.

genentech

just a pitch for their company. :/ they are cool, but come on.

Ramona, Decalara

Future of educational tech
When she says, “for- well I won’t tell you how long-“ is that ageism? Implying that long-ness is embarassing and not to be admitted to?
She would “run 13 miles a day to be able to sit in class and be bored for six hours”
She was in the military
She has amazing glasses
“The hard part was- when I woke up from the 18 month coma blind”
“All these teeth are porcelain and titanium”
She has nice moving slides, manipulated with a pointer. What software is this?
The product is Eclaira, and it involves virtual reality. I wish that we had wifi / reception here.
1.6 million teachers in mexico use them.
The digital divide is about- who will be the victim of technology?
“The sum of human knowledge can be had on your phone” I think that’s untrue, but the most-used bottom quarter is still pretty useful and the rest is coming as we can.
“I was in India on the edge of the city and there was a guy riding a water buffalo in just his underwear, and I took out my iphone and took a photo of him, and he dug in his underwear- and I thought, wow this is going to be interesting- and he takes out his phone and takes a photo of me!” (audience applauds)
“I was working on finding better algorithms to find and extract shrapnel fragments in the brain, to pay back the Bush family for my education”
Declara is focused on adult learning
Shoutout to the total archaicism of whiteboard photos being the thing that represents smart and innovation

apple

wishpot
polyvore
wechat lookup nearby people
She is wearing a black turtleneck. I wonder whether it’s a deliberate visual reference to Jobs?
Slides of the apple watch and what it can do

Intro

good intro video
they had the audience high five each other
“it turns out that you do! you exist!””
It is very crowded. There are booths upstairs.
the theater is sold out.
“We allow dogs onstage!”
“We are all about intersectionality”
Apparently LWT got a letter from president Obama, which the organizer showd a slide of and also read out loud.
tweet at #lwtoptimize with suggestions for how to improve the conference
The intro video had an overlay section which was pretty cool. (The faces of people, with a transparent overlay of the googling that they were doing and the results that they were getting)
I have the weirdest headache
The MCs recommend kippier clothiers (tailored suits for women)